With odds of a split US Congress rising, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that lawmakers’ failure to raise the statutory limit on US debt posed a “huge threat” to America’s credit rating and the functioning of US financial markets.
Yellen told Reuters in an interview in New Delhi on Friday that cooperation is still possible with Republicans on some issues, but lifting the debt ceiling is a non-negotiable item.
Some Republicans have threatened to use the next hike in the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling as leverage to force concessions from US President Joe Biden, a Democrat. US public debt stood at $31.2 trillion on Wednesday and without an increase, analysts anticipate a potential default crisis by the third quarter of 2023.
Republicans who took back control of Congress in 2010 elections brought the United States to the brink of default in a demand for spending cuts the next year, prompting a…
